


something real

by kwritten



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>taking place pre-series, presuming that Nora was with Miles during the time of the attack on his life that shifted things between Miles/Monroe</p><p><i>All’s fair in love and war</i>, she heard that somewhere when she was a kid. It always made more sense than it should. And since meeting Miles, since kissing Bass, since giving her heart over to an impossibly stubborn bastard, she had learned to understand that love could be its own kind of war. And they were the ones that taught her how to play dirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaqofSpades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/gifts).



> was supposed to be a simple pwp fluff piece of Nora giving Miles a 'gift' on his birthday, but turned into thousands of words of angst with some sex tacked on to the end, oops?

Nora was in her office, arguing with one of Monroe's projects-of-the-month over a bounty. He had a way of filling up her time with dipshit teenagers from time to time, hotheads that would have been better off in the militia being bullies with the rest than stalking prey. No matter how many times she shouted blue in the face, throwing lost bounties on his desk, he kept sending her children with no experience every few weeks. (She was probably the only one in Philly capable of throwing a fit at the President without repercussions. If only the rumor mill could see what she had to deal with behind closed doors.)

Nora was in her office, barely listening to the reason why one of her lackeys had lost one of Monroe's special pet projects at the border of Texas, when the blast went off. 

She was well-trained, she knew what a blast like that would mean, how much blood would be waiting amidst the debris once she found the source, she took off running without a thought. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little red-headed kid Monroe had sent her last month to be her secretary or something, or just another waif for him to bat his pretty eyelashes at, hiding under her desk in the hallway outside her office. She left her there, where she'd be safe. 

Not everyone was ready to run into a war zone without a second thought. 

Of course, she hadn't expected to find Monroe at the center of the crater that used to be their favorite watering hole, angry tears streaming down his face as he shouted out orders to the men and women clustered around him. She rolled her eyes at the crowd, the Republic was recruiting younger and younger these days, it looked more like a herd of teenage waifs than a militia. It wasn't until she had come up behind him, close enough to smell his disgusting aftershave, that she saw Miles lying at his feet, covered in blood. 

Of the three of them, she was the one who was better in a personal crisis. It was the best kept secret of the Republic, the absolute emotional immaturity of it's fearless leaders. The first time Mia had gone off after a bounty on her own, Nora was kept awake for the full three weeks by the sound of boots pacing the hallway, waking up in the morning to two men with bloodshot eyes and a fury lurking under their skin. Fuck, they acted like it was their sister out there with a gun on her belt and not hers. Mia came home safe and sound, with two bounty's tied up in the back of her wagon, and they'd laughed as if it was _her_ that had been worried. Just a few weeks before, Bass had gone on a top-secret mission that had pushed out their borders a few more measly miles, and returned with a minor flesh wound. Well, it would have been minor if he hadn't acted like an untrained newbie, riding all the way back to Philly without letting a medic look at it. The infection wasn't as bad as Miles made it out to be, a slight fever and a few days of bed rest and then the President was back on his feet. It was only thanks to Nora's diplomacy that every medic in a ten-mile radius hadn't been called at the President's slightest movement. 

She was better in a personal crisis and they were expert strategists. They ran a Republic with an iron fist and she gathered up the pieces that went astray. 

She wouldn't be in any history books, but wasn't that always the way? No one remembers the clean up crew.

She was better at a lot of things, but for a split second - seeing Miles not moving, barely breathing, covered in his own blood at Bass' feet - she nearly let go, gave up, collapsed under the weight of the fear that had nipped at their heels every day since the Blackout. 

"Nora?" 

She looked up into Bass' face and for a minute, that's all he was and that's all they were: Bass and Nora standing with Miles at their feet. It almost felt good. To not be the President and the General and the Bounty Hunter for just a moment. 

Nora saw movement over Bass' shoulder and pressed her lips into a thin line, nodding her head at him, "President?" Someone touched her shoulder gently from behind and the next few minutes were a blur of medics clearing out the wounded - Miles sent immediately to the capital building. Nora stayed at Bass' shoulder, her spine straight and her voice even, guiding him through the rest of the evening the way she had seen Miles do so a dozen times. 

Once the wounded and dead were accounted for, a team of their best scouts (and a couple of her best hunters) sent out to stir up the rebels that had caused this, they headed without a word back to Miles. She had been given a few reports from runners over his condition, but had been distracted examining the remnants of the bomb that had been left behind in the debris, focusing on a problem that she could solve. In the end, the bits had been sent back to her office for her secretary to hold on to. Or whatever her secretary did with the strange bits of artifacts and ingredients that she sent her. She knew at least that he was still breathing, but that didn't prepare her for the pale, sweaty face framed by bleach-white linens. 

The first thing that she noticed, irrationally, was that Miles was propped up on a pile of pillows. A protest was on the tip of her tongue, but she was waylaid by the surgeon, who took her by the elbow and lead her back into the hallway, muttering in her ear details and suggestions and important information, she was sure, but all she heard was a dull roar. Miles was notorious for throwing pillows on the floor as he slept. Maybe it was something about his tours overseas, or those years after the Blackout, or maybe even as a small child he had restlessly flung any pillow within his reach off the bed while in sleep. Bass liked to send over the best downy pillows he could find, digging up memory foam sometimes or other luxuries from the past, only for them to be flung to the ground. Most nights, he didn't even pretend, tossing them over his shoulder before collapsing face down onto his mattress. Other times, distracted by Nora, he'd forget and fall asleep with his head cushioned and her face pressed into her chest. In the morning, she'd wake up to find the blankets twisted into a ball at her feet, the pillows flung off the side, and her head cushioned by his arm, her back pressed into his chest, his leg slung over her waist, his head flat against the mattress. Seeing him asleep, resting, head propped up, felt like defeat, felt like he wasn't going to wake up. 

When she finally managed to brush the surgeon off and step back into the room, Bass looked up at her, slowly. In his eyes she read the same defeat that she had felt in the hallway. 

Bullshit.

"No," she knelt down next to the chair someone had pulled over for their President, pressing her hand on top of the one clutching Miles' clammy one, "We are not giving up on him. He wouldn't give up on us." She made her voice as firm as she could, adding bits of steel like an artist adding brushstrokes of silver to a painting. 

Bass shook his head, his eyes empty of their usual sparkle of humor, "What _we_?"

Nora ran her fingers through his hair as he leaned down on their intertwined hands and shook with tears he'd never let anyone else see. 

That first night, she fell asleep curled up in his lap, their three hands still clasped together on the bed.

 

 

In the beginning, there was fire and explosions. She was good at that. They taught her to be better. Or, they taught her to be worse. 

It stopped being something that mattered, better or worse, good or bad. She did her job and they did theirs and maybe she worked for them and maybe that was better than any alternative out there in the dark. She wasn’t equipped to be a farmer or a farmer’s wife, that was perfectly clear. She needed a fight, a strong sword behind her, something to pour her resentment into. 

 

“Maybe you have it worse than us, kid.” Monroe was still Bass when he said it. She preferred him when he was Bass, still wore a smile on his face that didn’t cut through his face like glass. 

“How so?” Miles threw a bone into the fire between them, sending up sparks. Nora raised her hand towards the light and smiled. She didn’t have it worse or better than any of them. They were all tired and dirty and hungry. That’s how the world was now. 

“We had time to destroy our lives on our own terms,” Bass gestured across the fire at Miles and himself, “but kids like her?” His expression darkened, “They were just starting their lives, had the whole world in front of them, and then…”

“And then it got taken away,” Miles finished. 

Nora stood up, kicking Miles a bit in the stomach as she did so, “Stop feeling sorry for me.”

By the time Miles ducked into her tent, she was fast asleep. She woke with his cheek smashed into her stomach and the sound of his snoring rattling her brain. 

“He always snores after a fight,” Bass was sitting at their feet, playing with an open knife. 

Nora didn’t know what to say to that. They were all still so _new_ to each other, camping out in empty spaces far away from where life used to flourish, scraping up a life worth living on the edges of losses that still run too deep. Miles and Bass weren’t new to each other, not exactly. But there was something… something just out of Nora’s grasp, that didn’t fit between them the way they used to. Or so she imagined. 

She had nothing to compare it to, honestly. 

“And you can’t sleep after a fight,” she whispered, turning her head back into her pillow, closing her eyes to the sight of him watching them.

 _Not without him._ She either pretended to understand or pretended not to hear. 

He wasn’t there when she opened her eyes in the morning and Miles’ back was to her and she pretended that it didn’t matter. 

(Which part, one leaving or one turning away, she couldn’t be sure. She was so young, so unbearably fresh and unsullied, looking back at that moment _a thousand moments_ fills her with embarrassed longing.)

 

Maybe she really did lose it all, before she was given the chance to throw it all away for herself. 

Maybe she would have thrown it all away anyway. 

Maybe she never knew how to hang onto what was important and maybe it never would have mattered anyway. 

 

“Mr. President?” her legs are numb from being curled up in the fetal position for too long, but somehow even in deep sleep, Bass has such a firm grip around her that she kinda needs him to wake up in order to stretch out. 

Well, she really needs him to wake up before she starts stretching out because there was that time outside of Chicago once where she accidentally nudged his sleeping form on her way out of the tent to pee and ended up with a knife to her throat. Jumpy Bass is not something she wishes upon herself under the best of circumstances, and definitely not when she’s not entirely sure any of her limbs can function. 

“No. Not today.”

Nora squirms a little, trying to see more of the room from where her face is pressed into his chest, which only makes his arm tighten around her, “What?!”

“Not the President today. Taking the day off.” 

Nora’s laughing at him, almost like she’s forgotten why she’s curled up in his lap instead of in her own bed or… 

His lips are slightly chapped when he tips up her chin to press them against her own, but gentle. She saw him, under half-closed eyelids, pull a blanket up over Miles’ shoulders once. The gentleness of the gesture took her breath away from the other side of the camp. The image flashes into her mind now, his long fingers just a hairbreadth away from Miles’ skin, and she tips her face up to the kiss. So he doesn’t want to be the President today, so then they are just two friends waiting for the person they love to wake up and sharing a kiss because that’s totally more normal than anything else that has ever happened to her since the blackout. 

“Was I really dead that long?” Miles’ rough voice drifts out from beside them. 

Nora turns, blushing, and it’s only Bass’ arm around her waist that stops her from hurling her body onto the bed. Her hand searches out and somehow they’re both there, already entwined. She adds her two shaking hands to theirs and kisses them, tears running down her face. 

“Maybe you did die, and this is heaven,” Bass’ voice is rough and yearning. She’d be embarrassed for him if she cared any longer. 

“Maybe I died and this is hell,” Miles rejoins. 

Nora looks down at their hands all twisted together, someone’s thumb is rubbing her skin softly, someone is gripping her tight, for the first and last time, it doesn’t matter which. 

 

They took turns sleeping on the chair, curled up on the bed next to Miles, on the couch that they pull in from another room that sags against the wall. She woke up more than once to her President’s nose pressed up against the skin of her neck, his breath tickling the sensitive spot behind her ear. Somewhere on the other side of the door, a Republic fought and functioned; or didn’t. Miles didn’t wake up again after catching their kiss and so the functionality of their empire wasn’t really a topic on anyone’s mind. 

Until about day five, when Jeremy opened the door and beckoned Nora out with a pained expression on his face. 

 

“Monroe,” she kicked his shin with her boot. “Get up, asshole. You stink and there’s a prisoner for you to interrogate.”

Bass cracked open one eye and smiled at her, “You brought me a present, Nora? You shouldn’t have.”

“No?” Nora wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. 

He leaned forward in the chair and plucked idly at the bedsheet covering Miles’ still form, “No.”

She was dusty and dirty and probably stank and hadn’t slept in three days and hadn’t seen Miles in at least five and she came back to find Bass right where she left him, eyes bloodshot and hands shaking, face gaunt like he hadn’t eaten since the last time she practically spoon-fed him. 

“Get your ass out of that fucking chair and do your goddamn _job_ for once in your pathetic life,” she forced steel into her words, stopped herself from being gentle, from handling him delicately. 

She couldn’t afford to be soft. 

His eyes flashed up to her face, “What did you just say to me?”

She shrugged, “You aren’t deaf, _Mr. President_. And you aren’t as fucking stupid as you’ve been acting. I said, _get off your ass_.”

He had her slammed up against the wall in a blink, one hand around her throat the other pinning her arms above her head.

Nora narrowed her eyes at him, “I was gone five fucking days. And you didn’t do anything but sit in here and brood. Is that what Miles would have done?”

His grip on her throat got tighter and she fought back the urge to grin. 

“Come on, Mr. President. Take a shower. Shave. Walk out of this room and remind people why they’re afraid of you.”

“Are you afraid of me?” his smile flashed bright and wide across his face, it almost looked real. 

“You’re asking the wrong questions. Don’t you care what’s happening out there?” she raised her right leg and pointed to the door with her toe. 

His eyes flickered down at her leg and smirked, letting go of her arms to wrap his hand around her thigh, pulling it up to press against his waist, rocking slightly into her. One finger caressed the line of her jaw as the others tightened around her neck. “I didn’t think you were coming back,” his eyes somehow managed to look past her, through her, despite the lack of space between them. 

“Of course I came back,” she breathed hard through her nose. 

“For him,” his voice held a slight hint of wonder. 

She stiffened beneath him, which only made him press closer, pushing her body more firmly into the wall, “Do you want me to say that I came back for your goddamn _Republic_?”

Bass brought his thumb up to trace the outline of her lips, “Treason looks good on you.”

“Sociopathy looks really shitty on you, Bass.”

He cocked his head to one side, his eyes finally seeing her for the first time since she walked in the room, “ _Never_ think you can tell me what Miles would want. _Ever. Again._ ” His tone was so measured, so distant, a shiver ran up her spine. 

She shot him a cheeky smile, “Should I salute or something?”

He let go of her throat abruptly, but didn’t pull away, her leg still gripping his waist, “Or something.”

She didn’t let herself sink down to the floor in exhaustion until after the door was shut firmly behind him. 

 

“I’m not sure when it became a game between us like this, but I don’t think you can even fix it now,” Nora wiped a wet cloth down the side of Miles’ wan face. He woke up several times while she was away, no one said whether he asked about her. She was sure he didn’t. “I miss your crazy idiot reckless smartass face.”

“Do you think he can hear you?” Bass said from the open door behind her, closing it softly with a click. 

“He’s not asleep all the time.” Nora gathered up the wet rag and old-fashioned bowl of water and stood up, preparing to leave. 

“I’m sorry,” Bass reached out a hand to stop her, fingers light on the skin of her forearm. “For being so rude this morning.”

She raised an eyebrow, “You liked your present.”

“I liked my present,” he smirked. 

Somewhere in the pit of her stomach she knew that she had dragged a mostly innocent kid in to be tortured, but another harder part of her didn’t care. So she was drawing lines like that now, playing judge and jury, delivering innocents in to be devoured. 

“You don’t have a monopoly on loving Miles, you know.”

His grip tightened around her arm, “Does he have a monopoly on loving you?” His lips were pressed against the base of her throat before she could respond, hungry and demanding on her skin. 

_Loving me won’t be the same as loving him,_ she almost said. 

When he raised his hands to cup her face and pressed a kiss against her lips, she bit down hard even as she dropped the bowl in her hand and tugged him closer. 

_Loving him won’t be the same as loving Miles,_ a voice whispered in her ear. It sounded like Bass, but she couldn’t be certain. 

Maybe there was a voice inside her head that sounded like Bass now, pulling her back from the brink. 

Maybe Bass actually said out loud what she couldn’t. 

“I don’t care,” she gasped against his neck. “I don’t _care_.”

“Honey, that’s the most rational thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

A knock pounded at the door. “Monroe?” Jeremy’s voice came through softly, but intent. 

“He’s gathering more of your rebels,” he said to her collarbone, taking it between his teeth. 

“They’re not _mine_ ,” she hissed between her teeth, pushing his shoulders away from her. “Give them back what they gave us.” 

A thrill went through her when she saw the same desperate thirst for vengeance in his eyes. He nodded shortly and turned on his heel.

 _For Miles,_ he didn’t say. 

_For us,_ she didn’t respond. 

While Bass executed a handful of teenagers, Nora curled up on the bed beside Miles and slept soundly for the first time in nearly a month. 

When she woke up, Miles was looking down at her with a strange expression on his face, something between chagrin and amusement and annoyance. 

A normal fucking day. 

“I kept dreaming that you were fucking Bass.”

She raised her eyebrows. 

He closed his eyes, one hand gently caressing her arm, “I think I’m awake for good this time.”

 

 

For the next few months, things are stilted, awkward between them. Despite how much they pretend otherwise. Bass and Nora fling themselves into the hunt for the American rebels, while Miles watches on the sidelines – growing more and more uncomfortable. 

Nora can sense a fight coming between them, something about morals, something about him being half-dead under her hands and he can’t understand, something about right and wrong and how she’s picking a side. It never comes. He’s more attentive, he laughs more, he argues less, he teases with a harder edge. She’s not sure who the fight is for – her or Bass – and that’s new, stranger and somehow more comfortable than she’d like. 

For the first time since meeting them, the sides weren’t clear, there wasn’t a straight line in the sand that she could depend on. Before Miles was injured, it was Bass and Miles against the world and she was just along for the ride, now… 

Now there was a new war and this one might actually hurt her. 

 

 

“I woke up,” he was standing in the doorway to her office. 

She looked up from the pile of warrants on her desk, frowning. “It’s past noon. I sure as hell hope that you woke up.”

“So I’m not an invalid anymore?”

Nora rolled her eyes, “You’ve been walking for three months. The doctor cleared you for active duty a month ago.” She threw a wad of paper at him, “You fucked me in the kitchen last night. You’re not an invalid anymore.” 

“Good to know the pity parade has ended.”

“ _Patrice!_ ” Nora shouted out, smiling up at the red-haired girl when she popped her head around Miles’ shoulder. “Can you send this up to the President’s office? Don’t take it yourself, have one of the boys run it up. I need you to finish those spreadsheets.” She handed her a stack of papers tied with a red ribbon and then turned back to Miles, dismissing her secretary with a wave of her hand, “So you woke up. Before noon I hope.”

“No,” he stepped forward and placed his hands against her desk, leaning over it and into her space. “Back then. During the fever. I woke up.”

“Yeah?”

“I woke up and I saw you kissing Bass. It wasn’t a fever dream, was it?”

Nora flipped through her papers impatiently, ignoring him. 

“Was it, Nora?”

She looked up, gaze steady, “Maybe this year you’ll actually give me what I want for my birthday.”

Miles straightened, cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Patrice?” Nora called sweetly. “When’s my birthday?”

Her secretary’s high-pitched voice came through the open door, “Four days ma’am! The President sent another message this morning asking you to allow him to host dinner for you that night.”

Nora kept her gaze on Miles, smiling softly, “What a _generous_ offer.”

“You’re playing with fire, Nora,” Miles warned under his breath. 

She didn’t say anything, just smiled up at him. 

_All’s fair in love and war_ , she heard that somewhere when she was a kid. It always made more sense than it should. And since meeting Miles, since kissing Bass, since giving her heart over to an impossibly stubborn bastard, she had learned to understand that love could be its own kind of war. And they were the ones that taught her how to play dirty. 

“Patrice?” Miles’ eyes never left her face, “Let the President know that _we’d_ be happy to have Nora’s birthday dinner in his quarters.”

“Yes sir,” Patrice’s voice echoed around them. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Nora,” Miles threw over his shoulder as he walked out. 

“Patrice could you shut my door and let everyone know that I’m indisposed for the rest of the day?” Nora choked out hoarsely. 

“Everything alright ma’am?” Patrice’s freckled face peered worriedly over at her from the doorway. 

“Just another migraine. Need some peace to finish going over all of this,” she gestured at her cluttered desk. 

Patrice bobbed her head and closed the door softly, backing out of the room. 

Nora placed her head on her folded arms on top of her piles of warrants and cried for the first time since Miles was injured. 

_There’s no going back_ , she whispered to the empty room. As if there was any way for her to ever go but forward. 

As if there was ever any other way forward but this. 

 

 

_”What do you miss? About the old days?”_

_Nora looks down into her glass, swirling the dark liquid around._

_“You must miss something. Everything misses something sometimes.”_

_“I miss people leaving me the fuck alone when all I want is a drink.”_

_That was rude, she looks up into the man’s face and starts to apologize, but he’s already laughing. “I miss the music, man.”_

_She blinks._ The old days. _The words mean one thing to some and quite another to her._

_“I miss everything being so simple,” she says to her glass seconds before throwing the last of it down her throat. And then laughs._

_Laughs and laughs and laughs._

_She’s too young to feel this way. She’s too worn out to feel any other way._

_She orders another drink and hides herself in a back corner, drinking alone, and not remembering a time when she drank with two._

_Three’s a crowd said nobody who’s ever been in love. Three’s a necessity. Three’s the only way to stay sane. Three’s a comfort. Three’s safety._

_One’s a crowd._

 

 

Bass bowed them into his quarters like they’re visiting foreign diplomats instead of his Bounty Hunter and his General. What a trio they are. 

She refused to feel awkward, to regret her choices. She wore the slinky red dress Bass sent over, pulling her hair out of the way so that Miles can zip her into it. His hands tremble against her skin and she doesn’t dare tease him about it. 

She felt like she was ushering a virgin bride into her honeymoon suite, walking down the hall arm in arm with Miles. It would be funny if it all didn’t feel a little ridiculous. 

_You’re making yourself a martyr,_ her reflection told her on the way out the door. She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at herself. 

Dinner was like a hundred others that they had had over the years. Miles and Bass trying to outdo each other with ridiculous stories from their past, Nora laughing along, egging them on. Tonight she pit them against each other a bit more than usual, a bit more careless and reckless in indulging their competitive natures. 

They were everything to each other and she was just the thing sitting between them. 

 

 

The party that wasn’t a party and was just any other night, but with champagne in her honor, moved to the sitting room area of Bass’ quarters without her realizing it. 

“Well we all know what I got you this year, but what did your noble knight bestow?” Bass’ voice was teasing, light. 

_He can’t know the answer_ , a voice whispered in her head. _You can stop this._

Nora raised her glass to her lips and smiled, taking a long sip of the champagne that feels like air on her tongue, “Would you like me to show you?”

Bass didn’td hide his obvious pleasure as his eyes graze over her body, he was never the type to hide his appreciation for any woman… even for the sake of Miles. 

Especially for the sake of Miles. 

“Nora…” there’s a warning in his voice even as Miles turned away. 

She drank the last of her champagne in one final gulp, before smiling over at Bass, “He doesn’t know what I’m going to ask for yet.”

Miles was looking out the window, probably all he could see was his own reflection. This pleased her. So like a creator of something terrible and beautiful, to turn away from it at the moment of its making, to get lost in his own face. 

Bass was sprawled across a chair on the other side of the room. Nora couldn’t have planned this better if she tried. Which she didn’t. 

They’ve all been racing towards this moment, even if she’s the only one willing to admit it. 

She dropped herself into Bass’ lap and whispered in his ear playfully, relying on their games in the last moment before it all falls to hell because they’ve done such a good job of training her to hide what they want from themselves, “Do you think he’ll say no?”

Bass looked up at Miles, still turned away from them, “Miles never says yes to anything he doesn’t want.”

There’s something yearning to the way Bass responded. 

It would break her heart if she didn’t recognize it so fully. 

She giggled – she never giggles, she’s not the giggling type, but this is a moment for giggling, it’s the only armor she has left in her arsenal – and shifted on Bass’ lap so that she was straddling him, her arms on either side of his head, “Will _you_ say no?” Her lips teased at the air above his, letting him take the last step, letting him cross that invisible barrier between where they begin and end. 

Miles could walk away from them and it wouldn’t change anything, no matter how much this was all for him or because of him. Maybe it was inevitable, Bass’ lips upon hers. They love the same broken thing and that made them broken, too. That made them a part of each other whether they wanted it or not. 

Well, she’s ready to want it. 

Bass smiled, “I’d never deny a lady who asks so pretty.”

His lips weren’t soft and gentle the way they were before, when Miles was asleep. She whimpered when Bass pulled her roughly to him. Dimly, she sensed Miles shift across the room. _It doesn’t matter_ , beats a steady drum in her head as Bass ran his hands up and down the length of her body greedily. 

_It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. itdoesn’tmatter itdoesn’tmatteritdoesn’tmatter._

Her dress is in shreds on the floor and she laughed, Bass’ deep chuckle joining in. 

“I should have left you the pleasure,” he said looking over her bare shoulder. “That’s why I bought it anyway.”

Nora trembled. 

Naked. Wet. Wanting. Waiting. 

“You bought my girlfriend a dress so that I could rip it off her?” His voice was right above her head, the warmth of his body radiating onto her bare back. 

Bass traced the length of her spine with his fingers lazily, looking up and beyond her, “I’m accommodating.”

He snorted, walked away, back to the window. Nora closed her eyes and a single tear traced its way down her face. Bass watched it descend and something clenched up in her stomach. 

She came here to expose them and all she did was expose herself. 

Bass wiped her face with the back of his hand and she dragged her gaze to focus back on his face. There’s a dare in his expression, a pleading, desperate dare. _Don’t give up._ She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his cheek, “Thank you for the beautiful gift.” She drew in a deep, shaking breath, “I guess I’ll only get one gift this year, might as well take advantage of it.”

Nora unbuttoned Bass’ dress shirt with steady fingers. She asked for this. Put herself on his lap, let him rip her dress right off her back. She’s never backed down from a fight. 

“All’s fair in love and war,” she muttered before dropping a kiss to Bass’ exposed collarbone. She undressed him slowly and surely, throwing his clothes across the room in every direction. They laugh and she bites a little too hard and he’s looking at someone over her shoulder instead of at her, but that’s what she asked for, isn’t it?

 

_”What do you miss? About the old days?” he’s hot and heavy on top of her, his cock pressing into her like he owns her._

_Maybe he does._

_“I miss … feeling whole.”_

_“I can make you whole, baby.”_

_She kisses him because he believes it and she needs to believe it, too._

_She pants in his ear because he believes it and she’s forgotten how to be honest, the men who taught her how to lie stuck in a past she can’t get back to._

 

Nora didn’t ever ask, _is he watching?_ because she wasn’t sure which answer she’s more prepared for. Or least prepared for. 

How can you prepare for a moment like this?

The moment she knelt at Bass Monroe’s feet and took his swollen cock between her lips was the moment she let go. Didn’t even realize that she was holding on to anything before she felt his soft flesh slide across her tongue and watched his head drop back against the chair – as if in relief. As if when he let go, she was finally able to. 

She closed her eyes and swirled her tongue around in her mouth, humming at his sharp intake of breath. There were hands in her hair that came from two different directions and it only really registered much later. 

That when she closed her eyes and Bass dropped his head, Miles finally let go. That they all let go of all their pretenses in the same moment. It was either a sign that they should have kept fighting to hold on, or that there was nothing to hold onto in the first place. 

Bass groaned out her name, like a prayer, and in that moment Miles ripped her away from him, one hand in her hair the other around her arm. One moment she was kneeling in front of Bass, her throat working against him, and the next she was standing, pressed against the long, hard length of Miles, his lips on her throat, his hands splayed across her stomach. 

“That fucking mouth,” Bass breathed, staring up at her. “That fucking beautiful mouth.” And then his was at her pussy, licking and inhaling her as Miles kneaded her breasts and traced a pattern with his teeth across the skin of her shoulders and neck and throat. 

Miles chuckled, backing away for a moment to pull his shirt up over his head, “He’s going to whine at me forever now that he knows what you can do.”

“Damn straight I am,” Bass rejoined, biting her softly on the inner thigh. “A goddamned selfish bastard keeps a mouth like that to himself.”

Nora fought back a laugh. As if this was about her. As if this was _ever_ about her. 

Miles shrugged out of his jeans and boxers, his cock pressing against her lower back. “Let me, baby? Say yes for me?”

Bass was back to work at her cunt and she was seeing stars, but Nora still managed to gasp out, “Yes for fuck’s sake, yes. _Please_.”

It’s like choreography, the way they both move around her. Practiced moves. One always waiting for the other to make space. 

Bass stood up, his lips on her left nipple in the exact moment that Miles pressed his cock into her. She arched her back and Bass grabbed her legs, pulling her thighs up to his waist. They held her up between them, Miles inside of her, Bass supporting her. 

Maybe that’s how it always was between them. 

She came softly, her body shaking and her voice a whisper, Bass’ fingers twirling around her clitoris while Miles kept up a steady rhythm inside of her. 

“Good girl,” Bass cooed into her ear. “Good, pretty girl.”

It was Bass that gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the bed in the other room, her legs still loosely slung over his hips, ankles crossed behind his back. He laid her out on the bed gently, while Miles watched from the doorway. 

“Get on your hands and knees,” Miles said hoarsely from the doorway. 

They both look up at him curiously. 

He rolled his eyes, a drink in his hand, “Nora. Get on your hands and knees.”

Bass leaned back as she rolled herself over and raised herself up, forcing herself not to look back at them over her shoulder. Miles smacked her ass, hard, with a chuckle, before turning to Bass. “What are you waiting for?”

Bass slid his hands over the mark Miles’ hands left on her skin before gripping her hips, pulling her towards the edge of the mattress so he can remain standing. He pressed a kiss to the base of her spine before thrusting up inside of her. She fought back a whimper, he’s more rough than Miles, more demanding, harder, faster. 

She lost herself to the movements, to the feel of him inside of her, to the feel of the comforter beneath her hands and knees. Her hair was coming out of the twist at the back of her neck and falling in her face, she wished she could push it away, but it wouldn’t do any good. She wished Bass would gather it up in his hands and hold it off her face, pulling her neck up and back towards him, but there was only motion, no words, no pleas, no suggestions. 

_Next time,_ the words flit through her mind and she choked back a laugh. 

She could hear Miles murmuring something to Bass behind her, but she doesn’t turn to look. Bass stills for a moment before pressing into her with a cry and she knew without opening her eyes that Miles is pressed up against Bass, inside of him. She could feel it seeping into her from where Bass pressed his fingers into her skin, the slap of his thighs against her thighs, the way his chest came to rest against her lower back. His desperation and want oozed out of him, released finally. 

“Miles,” Bass whispered against her skin and she hoped for his sake that she was the only one of them that felt it. 

 

_”What do you miss about the old days?” he presses his hand against her swollen belly and she smiles at him because that’s what she’s supposed to do._

_She does a lot of ‘supposed to’s these days._

_She puts her hand over his absently, “I miss having someone to protect.”_

_He nods like he understands. He can’t. He never well._

_How do you explain what it is like to hold the heart of a monster in your hands and fight the urge to crush it? How do you explain understanding that heart more than your own, giving in to what it wants without a second thought?_

_How do you explain anything about a life after it is gone?_

 

 

She woke up with Bass curled around her like a cat, arms pinning down her waist, legs twisted between hers, his nose pressed between her shoulderblades. 

“You created that monster,” Miles gestured to Bass from his position at the window. He was dressed in just a pair of boxers and was holding a cup of coffee. 

“I beg to differ,” she whispered. 

Miles sat down on the bed next to her and brushed her hair away from her face, “What have you done, Nora?”

She closed her eyes and nuzzled further into Bass’ arms, “What I wanted.”

Miles stood up and drank his coffee, looking out the window. 

 

 _I understand him,_ she didn’t say. _I love you like he loves you and in the end I’ll lose you both but at least I tried to have something that was real._


End file.
